1.7 trillion: Financial losses caused by software failures in 2017

According to a report from the website TechRepublic, software bugs and other errors related to bad software quality have cost businesses and organizations more than 1.7 trillion in financial losses in 2017, which corresponds to an estimated total of 268 years of downtime. These astonishing and humbling numbers show how important software quality is and how much work there’s still left to accomplish to ensure that software quality is a priority in all industries.

Here are a few interesting observations from the TechRepublic report:

1) Problems related to software quality aren’t the same from one industry to the next

Last year, technologies used the retail sector caused the most errors in total. Some of these problems were related to smart phones updates and security vulnerabilities that could be exploited. On the other hand, software errors were slightly down in the entertainment and transport sectors in comparison to 2015 and 2016.

Something more troubling: there are many important problems caused by bad software quality in the public services and health sectors that need to be addressed. In 2017, these failures took the form of automated systems that weren’t sending important letters to millions of patients or delivered medical bills that were incorrect and too high, of vulnerable public Wi-Fi signals and much more. In 2018, we hope that test automation technology and better test strategies will help companies produce better software to help people who rely on these crucial services.

2) Across all industries, the majority of failures are still caused by software bugs

Some problems mentioned in section above were related to security vulnerabilities in the platform itself. That being said, across all industries, most problems are still caused by software bugs that should have been identified and corrected during development. These issues can cause important financial losses.

Askida’s specialists are always trying to develop applications and solutions whose software quality is extraordinarily high. To reach our goals, we rely on test automation orchestration using our Askida platform, which allows us to test earlier in the development cycle and identify and correct software bugs long before they can affect users. To develop high quality custom software solutions, we definitely recommend adopting test automation and continuous testing.

3) Bad software quality can have a disastrous impact on your company’s brand and bottom line

Bad software quality can cause irreparable damage. For example, in 2017, the market value of the company Provident Financial fell 2.4 billion dollars after a new central planning application started causing massive issues, sending agents at the wrong place at the wrong time and much more. This situation demonstrate how bad software quality can cause a ripple effect for organizations and companies, damaging the public image of the company, causing major financial losses and requiring additional work to fix the issues.

To avoid this kind of nightmare, companies must take software quality very seriously. Unfortunately…

4) Many companies are still hesitating to adopt advanced test strategies

Development methods have changed considerably in the past 10 years to allow teams to create complex modules and functionalities faster and more efficiently. Unfortunately, many companies are still hesitating to adopt advanced test strategies, thinking that they can do without. Quality assurance is still a sector in which many organisations are hesitating to invest in.

Instead of relying on manual testing, companies must modernize their approach to quality assurance by adopting test automation orchestration and by integrating QA specialists within development teams. In the end, the main goal of your company should be to promote an internal culture that takes pride in software quality and rigorous testing. Every company and every development team is different, but by encouraging high software quality, you may be able to avoid disasters like Provident Financial’s situation.

To find out more about software quality and the best practices to put into place inside your organization, feel free to contact us. Our specialists work regularly with businesses of various sizes to review their development methods and internal processes and make key recommendations. We can help implement test automation, accompany you as part of an important development project and much more.

Team Askida

Askida is a center of expertise in software development and quality assurance whose aim is to optimize the competitive advantages of its customers while reducing cost and risk. The company develops customized, premium quality software and guarantees the quality of existing software through its own Askida solution.